Posted on 06/27/2008 8:33:23 PM PDT by Coleus
After 21 years of unsuccessful heart treatments, including several heart procedures, 68-year-old Coenie de Jongh was desperate. So when his cardiologist suggested a last-resort experimental therapy, it represented a literal life line. Coenie, from Bloubergstrand near Cape Town, had his first heart attack at the young age of 40. A bypass operation followed and his condition improved, but seven years later Coenie’s health started deteriorating again. More operations and more intense treatment followed, but in 2002 his health took a real turn for the worse. His condition was so bad he struggled to find a cardiologist who was willing to perform another bypass operation. The procedure was eventually done, but it wasn’t as successful as they’d hoped. At that stage, Dr Andre Saaiman from Kuils River Hospital was conducting research involving the use of stem cells*. He was inspired by the work done by Prof Philippe Menasche from France, who had figured out a way to inject stem cells derived from skeletal muscle into failing hearts.
After getting ethical approval from Stellenbosch University, Dr Saaiman decided to try out the novel therapy on Coenie, who by then was extremely ill and confined to a wheelchair. In December 2004, he called Coenie in and took cells from his upper leg, which he then cultivated in a laboratory. A month later, he injected the cultivated stem cells into 40 areas of Coenie’s failing heart. The results were little short of miraculous. In less than two weeks, Coenie’s condition improved dramatically. “He was a different person,” Marlene, Coenie’s wife, recalls. “Before the operation, he had only 10 percent heart function; afterwards, his heart function shot up to almost 35 percent. It was amazing to see what he could do again. He started walking again, and could lead a relatively normal life.”
(Excerpt) Read more at health24.com ...
Adult stem cell research = hope.
Embryonic stem cell research = hype.
Adult stem cell research govt funding is being held up by the pro-abortion lib death cult, sacrificed on the altar of embryonic stem cell hype.
Excellent aricles. Everyone should read them...twice.
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